Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [100]
She hadn’t answered the phone, and her mobile was switched off. He’d been about to give up when he’d seen her. She was pretty merry, he could see that. Simon was holding her up, her arm tight about his waist, and his clamped round her shoulders. Under the porchlight he’d watched Simon kiss her, feeling queasy. And then they had disappeared inside.
He sat for a few more minutes before he drove off.
Surgeon’s hands. She remembered them. Delicate, careful, thorough. No rough skin or sharp nails. Soft like a woman’s, insistent like a man’s. Cupping her breasts with a touch that was almost reverent. Tracing down the cleft of her buttocks with the lightest strokes.
Natalie was light-headed and knew she’d drunk too much to be doing this. But it was too easy, too familiar. And too good. He knew exactly how to touch her. She arched her back and surrendered.
When she woke up the next morning, she felt terrible. She couldn’t drink that much, and she was supposed to go to work, but when she sat up, the room moved with her, and didn’t stop when she did. She fell back, gratefully, on to the hot pillow. It took her a couple of minutes to realise that Simon was there. He always slept on his front, with his head under the pillow. For a second she forgot whose smooth brown back it was, and by the time she remembered, she was half-way to the bathroom, her hand clamped over her mouth.
Simon came in while she was still clutching the white porcelain. At least surgeons weren’t squeamish.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s okay. Wasn’t quite how I planned to herald the morning, but there’ll be others… Do you want some water or anything?’
‘A lift back to bed?’
But he’d already gone. Natalie crawled after him.
He was sitting in the middle, propped up by all the pillows, the duvet tucked under his arms like some invalid aunt. ‘You shouldn’t drink so much.’
People who stated the bloody obvious like that when you felt like death warmed up should be killed.
Since there was no room for her in the bed, Natalie crawled into the foetal position on the moth-eaten chaiselongue Susannah had bought at a flea-market. She felt the clasp of her bra – evidently thrown there last night – digging into her bum, but she couldn’t be bothered to remove it.
Perfect time for a deep and meaningful.
‘So, Simon, did you see other women while we were apart?’
He didn’t even look uncomfortable. ‘A couple.’
‘Do I know them?’
‘No. Of course not. I’m not completely insensitive, Natalie.’ Wasn’t he?
‘What are you actually calling a couple? Do you really mean two, or do you mean more?’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because last night you waltzed back into my life – and my bed – after months and months, and I need to fill in the missing pieces.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I do. Don’t you wonder what I’ve been doing since you dumped me?’
‘I didn’t dump you.’
‘That’s exactly what you did.’
‘I was confused. I needed some space. I’ve come back, haven’t I? Why can’t that be enough?’
‘It might be, I suppose, if I trusted you. I find that pretty hard this morning.’
‘You didn’t seem to have any trouble with it last night.’
‘Last night you bought me too much champagne. This morning I’m seeing things a bit more clearly.’
‘You’re hung over. That’s not clearly. Why don’t you let me take you out for breakfast?’
Simon climbed out of bed grudgingly, and started to pull on his clothes.
‘You haven’t asked me.’ Natalie’s voice was very small.
‘What?’
‘You haven’t asked me if I want to go out for breakfast.’
‘What are you talking about, Natalie?’ His tone was irritable.
‘I’m talking about the fact that you haven’t asked me anything. Not if I want breakfast, not what I did after you left me, not how my family is, how work is, how anything is. You don’t even know if I’m with someone else. Because you haven’t asked.’
‘I assumed you’d tell me if there was anything I needed to know. And if you’re seeing someone else, I feel a little sorry for him. You let me back into your knickers quickly enough – and it rather seemed to me like you were in need of a good seeing-to.’
Natalie stood up, head